Archive for December 2009

Winter and the Christmas season are here, so I thought that I would venture out into the snow so everyone could enjoy the wintery wonderland from the comfort of their own home. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from the Chicago Art Blog!

It appears that the Aon Center has been a naughty building this holiday season, because it has received yet another lump of coal (read: antenna) again marring its dominating vertical facade. The top of the Aon now looks like this: We may recall that previously the building received its first antenna (see below) in July,... Read more »

Last entry, the Chicago Art Blog revisited the unexpected controversy surrounding a most traditional public sculpture in Chicago. Chicago Tribune pop culture critic Steve Johnson wrote a feature article on J. Seward Johnson’s God Bless America, a sculpture that is, in his words, a “25-foot-tall knockoff of American Gothic,” that is, the painting by Grant... Read more »

Besides Glenn Beck’s try at art criticism, another notable art controversy from last year was much closer to home. A year ago, J. Seward Johnson’s God Bless America came to Chicago. The sculpture itself is an enlargement and embellishment of the iconic Grant Wood painting American Gothic, which is in the collection of the Art... Read more »

Before the holiday season set in, we looked at the unlikely emergence of Glenn Beck as an art critic or art historian during a segment on his show on Fox. He purported to expose fascist and communist symbols that were hiding “in plain sight” on public art installations, particularly on the property of business rival... Read more »

Glenn Beck is many things, most of which are unpublishable, but I never expected him to take on the role of art historian or art critic. But on the second of September those are the roles that Beck decided to take on. Despite the fact that Beck has no formal education in art history, his... Read more »